The Wiley Fox is a new incarnation of long standing city centre pub and venue, The Pint. With management changing hands, the intentions of the powers that be to furnish this bar with greater air of sophistication are apparent from first glance at the tastefully understated exterior.
Like most recently opened establishments of its ilk, the revamped interior embraces the more international notion of a bar as opposed to an Irish pub in the more traditional sense. In other words, there’s no heavy-handed deployment of old Harp and Paddy mirrors or other Emerald Isle ephemera. Exposed bricks and mix-and-match light fixtures stretch as far as the eye can see, a bicycle is attached to the wall at head height, taking pride of place as a would-be beacon of modern bohemian living. High wooden tables and sturdy stools in lieu of booths provide plenty of desirable perches for one’s posterior. The notion of a ‘vibe’, pleasant or otherwise, is obviously as subjective as it is unquantifiable, but on this sunny Wednesday evening, the Wiley Fox, and the affable Roky Erickson lookalike manning the taps were managing to cultivate a mostly pleasant one.
The Wiley Fox does however sadly suffers from the same fascination with guileless, phoned-in street art that plagues seemingly every bar striving to appeal to the 18-35 demographic. The walls are plastered with images on anthropomorphic foxes in three-piece suits, like extras from a rough build of Hotline Harcourt Street. A lion’s face stares blankly from one piece, somehow aware of the fedora and glasses he’s been placed in, demeaning us both. An otherwise pleasing print of a fox’s head is irrevocably sullied with the phrase ‘for fox sake’ daubed underneath it.
Cynicism aside, different strokes for different folks and these interior-decorating missteps fail to scupper the Wiley Fox’s appeal. My companion and I opt for a couple of pints of Brooklyn Lager, its €6.50 price tag now seeming to be an entirely necessary evil. We finish what we have and line up another two, and so on. I guess that’s the highest praise you can really afford any bar; that you find it hard to say how long you’ve been there and don’t really want to leave. Time marches on, we remain oblivious to the clock and put in another order. Vintage Belle and Sebastian comes on the stereo. I think I kind of like this place.
The Wiley Fox
28 Eden Quay, Dublin 1
w: www.thewileyfox.ie
t: 01-8783075
Words: Danny Wilson
Photos: Killian Broderick
